Now that we’ve had a little fun at Wikipedia’s expense, go to its website and look up an entry on a contemporary issue that interests you, and ideally, one you’ve been following in the op-ed pages of the Denver Post. Read through the entry, keeping an eye out for what kind of “extrinsic proofs” or evidence or testimony it uses to support its claims. Pay attention to the footnotes and see where a few of these links take you.
After you explore this entry, write a paragraph evaluating this entry as a source of information. How reliable do you think it is? Why do you think it is or is not credible? What kind of support does it offer for its claims? What seems to be lacking? Do you think you could justify using it as a source for a college paper? Why or why not?
Upon exploration of the “Immigration to the United States” page on Wiki, I believe the page (if it weren’t on wikipedia), by and large is reliable. The information doesn’t seem riddled with biases, and there are 173 sources listed in the footnotes of the page. Upon looking through a few of these footnotes, I found that they seem credible themselves: they were either articles displaying facts or books that are written by people who have studied the subject of immigration in the United States. In my cursory examinations, I didn’t find much opinion in these articles. There is one big problem with Wiki’s “Immigration to the United States” page, though: the web address.
ReplyDeleteI chose to evaluate AP Exams through Wikipedia. I read through the first introduction paragraph and the paragraph on the history of the AP exam. The content seems to be very thorough and it gives a detailed history about the founding and development of the exam. I believe that this source is very reliable. It offers detailed information and then proceeds to cite all the information given. Each one of the citations seems to be a credible source with the majority of them being from the actual College Board website. I think that this source could definitely be used for a college paper. Due to the fact that the information given is cited from the College Board website, there is little opportunity to put false information in this entry. This could be used for a college paper because of the credibility of the sources. If the sources were not cited correctly, or they were cited from different and/or questionable websites, then there would be reason to question the reliability of the source.
ReplyDeleteThe Wikipedia article titled “Legality of Cannabis” is all in all a moderately reliable article. It quotes a few sources that are real and support the writer’s claims. But there are definitely some problems with this Wikipedia entry. There are not nearly enough citations, as is shown by how many spaces that say “citation needed.” Obviously, this is a problem, as anyone could have pulled any of these facts out of thin air and typed them into a computer at whim.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading an article written about the state capitol building in downtown Denver, I learned that the gold-plated dome that serves as the highest point of the building, is falling apart. Modeled after the capitol building in Washington D.C., the Denver building has served as an icon for over 100 years. However, after all the years of service, the dome is at risk of being lost forever. I wanted to see if the problematic dome was available on Wikipedia, and what some experts thought of its vulnerable state. While Wikipedia did not have any information on the dome falling apart, I did learn some new facts, which I assumed to be credible. For example, when originally constructed, the 15th step of the building served as the point in the city that was 1 mile above sea level. After many years, experts decoded that the 18th step was the 5280 feet marker. Most recently, students form Colorado State University discovered that step 13 was the magic one mile marker. One can assume that the building has shifted perhaps, but the original measurement was taken over 100 years ago, the most recent 8 years ago. So with technological developments, and the proof from a respected college, it is safe to say that at least one fact on Wikipedia is right.
ReplyDeleteWhen looking around Wikipedia for information on the college admissions process in the United States, and from my experiences and knowledge of the experience, the material provided seems reliable. They used good resources and referenced well known college books. Although there isn’t a lot of criticism within the article that might let bias get in the way, they do talk about how a group once tried to get presidents of colleges to not participate in a reputation survey that is published in the U.S. World Report. I think that Wikipedia does a good job of describing the process but if I wanted to research something that is more controversial I probably would have found more bias within the article. I could probably use this as a resource because they have a plethora of strong references. Also with this topic there is not a lot of controversy for people to talk about because they don’t talk about ranking or which schools are better. The article also talks about financial aid which is definitely a growing issue in the United States because schools are not giving out as much. I don’t think there is anything wrong with the quality of this article and I would probably feel comfortable using it as a resource.
ReplyDeleteThe article I read from Wikipedia was about felonies. It explained what a felony is and gave a brief overview. I do think this article is creditable. It has creditable sources at the bottom of the page where they got their information. Some of these sources were the editor of a magazine and the United States Department of Justice. Another reason I think this article is creditable is because it is all strictly facts; there is not any personal opinion in it so there is no bias opinion on the topic. Being able to justify using a Wikipedia article, as a source on a college paper would be a little difficult though. Wikipedia is a good starting off point if you’re stuck on a topic. It is good to get your brain moving and help you start your paper, although I cannot justify putting Wikipedia onto my reference sheet of a college academic paper.
ReplyDeleteI read an article about the University of Denver on Wikipedia and found it to be very accurate. They provide facts that all seem to be relevant as well as information that I was not aware of, such as the fact that we own the second highest telescope in the world. Also, the information is current which makes it more reliable. The facts are all up-to-date as well as go in depth to provide statistics about national rankings. I believe it’s credible because, as a student, I am relatively knowledgeable about the university. They provide current information about the mascot controversy, the have lyrics to our fight song listed, and general information about the campus. In support of the claim and statistics, they cite major names such as BusinessWeek, U.S. News & World Report, Foreign Policy Magazine, Men’s Fitness magazine, etc. As we talked about in class previously, Wikipedia uses academic experts to prove their credentials in this article. There isn’t much lacking either therefore the thoroughness adds to the reliability. I could definitely justify using this for a college paper because the registrar must provide much of this information that is posted and it is difficult to incorrectly state facts about a university. DU has to monitor this information simply to effectively market the school on the web.
ReplyDeleteI looked first at the “Private Education” page and then the “Education in the United States Page.” Both sections stated that they required citations therefore giving me the feeling that these pages were not entirely reliable. Having been a participant in United States education, I am able to back of some of the claims with my own experiences and other readings, however, Wikipedia does not provide many sources of their own. In the “Education in the United States” article, there is a section on statistics; here most of the statistics presented were backed up with some kind of source, however, statistics are a whole other discussion (there are lies, damn lies, and statistics…). One convincing factor of these pages is the language used to describe and explain education. Most of the phrasing is intelligent and complex enough to warrant trust from the reader. Unfortunately, however, the sections I read do not include examples of claims and are more biased sounding than empirical. As for retrieving a general overview of the educational system, I would not recommend doing so from all sections of the pages I read. It is necessary to pick through the sections and information to find the non-biased information. I would not recommend using these pages for any paper with the exception of general knowledge of the education system (i.e. definitions of private versus public school).
ReplyDeleteAfter typing in "Santa Claus" on Wikipedia, there is a broad range of topics with good detail. At first wiki give a brief overview of the physical description of Santa Claus, then the article goes into detail of St. Nick, the shopping that goes with Christmas, children's letter writing, and Christmas traditions. Each section of the page goes into detail and has depth to the piece. All of the information on Christmas traditions and the description and facts of Santa Claus are all very accurate. I would use this cite for a college paper because all of the facts are true and it contains a lot of information on one page.
ReplyDeleteI use the Wikipedia to find my hometown, which is Shenzhen. Before I read the data of the population in Shenzhen, I thought the person who wrote this article really knows about Shenzhen. However, after I read the population number in this article. I found out this article’s datas need to update, because the data the author used is pass away. The author said there was 8,283,000 population in Shenzhen, but actually nowadays there are 20,000,000 people in Shenzhen. This is a huge difference for this number. Therefore, I think that I would not use Wikipedia as a source for my college paper. It is inaccuracy. I do not want my paper to misunderstanding my readers. Especially something new to them.
ReplyDeleteThere was a recent issue on allowing illegal immigrants the opportunity the right to education and in-state tuition in the state of Colorado. The Wikipedia article, Defend Colorado Now, talks about the ballot introduced that denies non-emergency public services that are not required by federal law to illegal immigrants in Colorado. The site refers to the Arizona Proposition and the California Proposition as similar laws that were declared unconstitutional. At the top of the page it states, “The article does not site any references or sources.” This statement alone shows how unreliable this source probably is. The fact that it consists of a few statements about the Colorado issue but does not site any other sources about it gives leeway to why it would not be credible. The article is short and consists of a few dates and quotes but I did not know where these quotes were from or who said them. I don’t think this source could be used in a college paper because the facts do now line up. There are no references and one cannot quote something if they do not know who said it.
ReplyDeleteI picked an article on AP courses in high school. I read through the brief introduction and then the different sub titles. A lot of the information I came across seemed to be valid and made sense. A lot of it is opinionated but there are also some fact that are supported by internet articles.
ReplyDeleteThe contemporary subject I looked up was Global Warming. The page seems to be very credible. I think one reason why it does sound so legitimate is because this is a topic that people really care about. As for some other topics, it can seem like people have hopped on wikipedia, and just thrown some numbers on there and published it as something legitimate. There is a lot on the page that is scientific, and im not much of a science junkie, so I can't really speak to that. But, there is also a ton of information on everything that has to do with Global Warming and what its affects can be.
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